114 MUSICAL EVENTS The Requiem for Rossini was com- posed, but, for a variety of linked rea- sons, it was not performed. Verdi had suggested that the composers and per- formers should donate their services and, in addition, "offer their obol" to cover the costs of the undertaking: "I should not like any foreign hand, or any extraneous to the art, no matter how powerful, to proffer aid. In that case I would withdraw from the as- sociation at once." Ricordi got up a subscription; a letter of Bazzini's survives, expressing indignation that, having supplied his contribution gratis, and being prepared to come to Bologna at his own expense, he should also be solicited to help underwrite the perfor- mance. The Requiem, Verdi had stip- ulated, should be "an object neither of curiosity nor of speculation." There was no profit in it for Ricordi. (Mean- while, the publisher was making hand- some sums from Rossini's Petite Messe Solennelle, acquired from the com- poser's widow.) Plans for mustering a chorus of the best voices from the I tal- ian conservatories fell through. Lui- gi Scalaberni, the impresario of Bolo- gna's Teatro Comunale, where a busy season had been planned, was asked to lend his chorus and orchestra, and he refused. Moreover, Bo- logna had already put on one collaborative Mass (by local composers) in honor of Rossini, and also the Italian première, followed by four more performances, of the Petite Messe Solen- nelle. That was not all. Bologna, then as now, was a progressive city, and the Requiem was reactionary. Scalaberni had just present- ed "II Barbiere di Siviglia" not in Rossini's version but in anew, modern setting, by the twenty-six-year-old Costantino Dall' Argine, of the same libretto. The 1869 season included Meyer- beer's "II Profeta," "Gli U gonotti," and "Roberto il Diavolo," and Scalaberni was planning to introduce Wagner to Italy. ("Lohen- grin" arrived in 1871, "T annhäuser" the follow- ing year.) He complained that none of the younger Italian generation- Boito, A Requiem for Rossini ì \ / J '0 t q \ \ t , R SSINI died on November 13, 1868. Four days later, Verdi wrote to the publisher Ricordi with a suggestion that Italy's leading composers should collaborate on a Re- quiem Mass, to be performed in the church of San Petronio, Bologna, on the anniversary. The work, Verdi said, "however good the individual numbers may be, will inevitably lack musical unity; but, though it may be deficient in that respect, it will nevertheless serve to demonstrate how great is the vener- ation we all feel for the man whose loss is now mourned by the world." After a single performance, the score would be sealed and laid to rest in the archives of the Bologna Liceo, to be disturbed only if some future generation should wish to commemorate Rossini. Verdi's letter was widely published. A committee of three professors at the Milan Conser- vatory, with Giulio Ricordi as the sec- retary, drew up a scheme for the piece. They prescribed the tonality, the tem- << > " \ ' OK , i ,> " . ... o ,. 1 00 " .. q ." # <"'t-. :. . 0 J : < i'". , "'" t *4}1 f > .... 1 ' - '. 0 r'" ., 0 J 1 ........---- , , "";,.... :..." .. """"- """ .N.y" ..y.' po, the vocal forces, and the duration of the thirteen numbers, and placed the invitations. Verdi was allotted the Libera Me; the other composers were Antonio Buzzolla, Antonio Bazzini, Carlo Pedrotti, Antonio Cagnoni, Fe- derico Ricci, Alessandro Nini, Rai- mondo Boucheron, Carlo Coccia, Gae- tano Gaspari, Pietro Platania, Lauro Rossi, and Teodulo Mabellini. They spanned Italy from Milan, where Boucheron was maestro at the Duomo, to Palermo, where Platania directed the Conservatory. A national offering from a united Italy was intended. Opera composers were invited to take part (the ailing Mercadante declined; Petrella later withdrew), and church- music specialists: Nini was the maestro di cappella of Santa Maria Maggiore in Bergamo, Buzzolla of St. Mark's in Venice, Coccia of San Gaudenzio in Ferrara, and Gaspari of San Petronio itself; Cagnoni had been the maestro at Vigevano Cathedral. =:=::- . J1 .... .:i.. ,. ,. ... '\ . ?t W>>.o. '.\:' ', "'- 1Id . '" ...... , J<> ,.' "Sc"<<6 .... '. ....... ....,.... .....,... :1 ". .,',y:. -- . W Øt1 ' ';. --: - I "My girlfriend over in Central Planning says if everything stays on track it's definitely Bloomie's and Saks by the mid-nineties!" NOVEMBER. 13,1989